Church Commissioners

Church Commissioners: Land

Kerry McCarthy: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2020 to Question 125956, whether the Commissioners in collaboration with the Land Registry has conducted a land survey of land assets held by the Church of England.

Kerry McCarthy: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, pursuant to the Answer of 10 December 2020 to Question 125956, whether the Commissioners have made an assessment of the level of compliance with the Land Registration Act 2002 of their policy on digitally mapped Church land assets.

Andrew Selous: As a responsible landowner, the Church Commissioners comply with the requirements of the Land Registration Act 2002, and the Church Commissioners are only responsible for the land which they hold, not all Church of England land.The Church Commissioner’s land has, to a large extent, been registered with the Land Registry, all such information is publicly available via the Land Registry. The 2002 Act does not provide for the Land Registry and the Church Commissioners to collaborate to undertake land surveys, nor does it require the Commissioners to have a policy on digital maps of their landholding.

Religious Buildings: Planning Permission

Valerie Vaz: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what steps he is taking to support building development for historic places of worship.

Andrew Selous: Advice and support for parishes and cathedrals is available via the Church of England’s platform ‘Church Care’, this website acts as a portal for advice on management, maintenance, development and grants available to parishes and cathedrals. During the pandemic period, £30m of grants that have been awarded to Church of England churches and cathedrals from a combination of the Government’s Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) and the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Emergency Fund. The Church of England is grateful for this support and recognition by the Government of the key role these buildings play in their local communities. The grants awarded by the Culture Recovery Fund were allocated to 227 churches and cathedrals with 43% of this money is going to the 30% most deprived parishes – over £12.9m; 20% of the money going to the 10% most deprived parishes, totalling over £5.9m. The Lichfield Diocese received of six grants totalling £342,825 from the Culture Recovery Fund and the National Lottery Heritage Emergency Fund, this included five awards to parish churches totalling £199,925 and a grant to Lichfield Cathedral of £142,900 A second Culture Recovery Fund has now launched, and churches with listed buildings are being encouraged to apply for support.

Religious Buildings: Poverty

Valerie Vaz: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of support available to places of worship in areas of high deprivation; and if he will make a statement.

Andrew Selous: While the primary responsibility for decisions on resourcing mission and ministry rests with the dioceses, the Church Commissioners have provided an extra resource to dioceses (distributed by The Archbishops’ Council) to support mission and ministry in deprived communities in the form of Lowest Income Communities Funding. Across England, £82.1m has been allocated by the Commissioners for this purpose in 2020-22. Recipient dioceses are required to report on their use of this funding to The Archbishops’ Council each year. The Diocese of Lichfield, which covers Walsall South, will receive over £1.7m of this funding in 2021. In 2019, the diocese allocated some £200,000 of this to support ministry and mission in parishes in Walsall. The dioceses can also apply for Strategic Development Funding (SDF) for significant projects which support their mission and financial strength, in line with their own strategies. The criteria for this funding seeks to focus on areas of deprivation, and on work with children and young people and within large urban areas. In 2019, £1.7million was awarded to Lichfield Diocese to fund a project to enhance mission and ministry in Telford, which includes some of the diocese’s most deprived areas. A further £35m Sustainability Funding has also been made available to help diocese whose income has been reduced by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. This funding is focused on those dioceses with fewer historic assets and whose populations have lower average incomes. Grants worth £15m were made to 24 dioceses in 2020.

Charitable Donations: Computer Software

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: To ask the Member for South West Bedfordshire, representing the Church Commissioners, what assessment the Church of England has made of the potential merits of establishing an app to enable contactless donations to be given via a QR code in the context of the covid-19 outbreak.

Andrew Selous: The Church of England’s central purchasing facility ‘Parish Buying’ has been rolling out electronic and contactless giving across the parishes and cathedral since 2018. Parish Buying has negotiated a discounted rate for churches to take online donations given through GiveALittle. Nearly 2,000 churches have set up GiveALittle accounts so far.The national Church is funding premium membership of this service for all parishes, enabling people to make gift aid declarations and to make regular monthly donations online. The GiveALittle system allows a church to publish a giving page or make a QR code available to enable people to give quickly and simply. Guidance for parishes is available here.Training is available online for parishes on many giving issues, including online giving, and there is extensive guidance on both Parish Buying and Parish Resources websites. GiveALittle also has an app available for contactless devices, and this enables the public who may wish to donate to churches to continue to make donations. This year the Church will begin the rolling out of free contactless devices to half Church of England parishes, and many have already installed them following the successful trials in 2018.

Department of Health and Social Care

Transplant Surgery: Coronavirus

Lee Anderson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional support his Department is providing to transplant recipients during the covid-19 outbreak.

Helen Whately: Solid organ transplant recipients were identified at the start of the pandemic as one of the groups of patients at highest clinical risk of COVID-19 and therefore were included in the agreed list of clinically extremely vulnerable patients. Throughout the pandemic, healthcare providers were asked to ensure care for these patients is personalised and takes account of individual circumstances such as COVID-19 risk and the impact of shielding on health and wellbeing. Such patients were able to access government support, including delivery of food and medicines and clinical advice through various routes.

Coronavirus

Claudia Webbe: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people tested for covid-19 were found to be asymptomatic in (a) Leicester East constituency and (b) the UK.

Helen Whately: We do not publish data in the format requested.

Hospitals: Coronavirus

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the proportion of covid-19 infections which can be attributed to contact in a hospitality setting.

Edward Argar: We publish weekly data on the number of incidents in each setting with at least one laboratory confirmed case of COVID-19.This information is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports

Coronavirus: Screening

Ben Lake: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the capacity is for (a) pillar I and (b) pillar II covid-19 tests.

Helen Whately: Testing capacity in the United Kingdom across all pillars between 26 November and 2 December was at 4,684,727 tests. Data on individual capacity across all pillars throughout England is published each week alongside other Test and Trace statistics at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports

Test and Trace Support Payment

Daniel Zeichner: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of the funding allocated to councils for the Test and Trace Support Payment has been spent in (a) Cambridge, (b) Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and (c) England.

Helen Whately: We continue to work closely with the 314 local authorities in England administering the Test and Trace Support Payment scheme. This includes collating information on the number of successful applications, which we will publish in due course.

Test and Trace Support Payment

Maria Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will review the eligibility criteria for Test and Trace Support Payments to include people whose Test and Trace ID Reference isolation date predates the introduction of the scheme.

Helen Whately: The NHS Test and Trace Support Payment scheme was introduced on 28 September 2020, alongside the legal duty to self-isolate. People can apply for the Test and Trace Support Payment if they have been told to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace on or after this date and they meet the eligibility criteria. The eligibility criteria will not be changed to include people whose isolation period predates the scheme.

Care Homes: Coronavirus

Mohammad Yasin: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Public Health England's guidance entitled, Personal protective equipment (PPE) – resource for care workers working in care homes during sustained COVID-19 transmission in England, for what reasons the advice was changed from wearing vinyl gloves to wearing nitrile, neoprene or latex when providing personal care and when exposure to body fluids or blood is likely; and what evidence base was used to inform that updated guidance.

Helen Whately: The Public Health England (PHE) guidance on personal protective equipment (PPE) was amended to state that vinyl gloves should not be worn if it is anticipated that there will be contact with bodily fluids or blood. This was informed by Health Protection Scotland’s Standard Infection Control Precautions Literature Review on PPE. We recognise that as this review was undertaken in clinical settings, the findings are not wholly applicable to adult social care settings. We are working closely with PHE and adult social care providers to amend and clarify the guidance.

Coronavirus: Screening

Bill Esterson: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the OptiGene Direct RT-LAMP test,  if he will publish the (a) clinical validity data and (b) results of the Southampton University trial of May 2020.

Helen Whately: The Test and Trace Scientific Team are currently preparing a report covering the clinical validation of Optigene’s DIRECT RT-LAMP Test which will incorporate the findings of the pilot carried out in Southampton as well as those from other pilot sites. This report will be published on GOV.UK alongside the report on lateral flow test validation data published on 11 November.

Coronavirus: Screening

Rachel Reeves: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criminal background checks are undertaken against (a) covid-19 testing site workers who interact with children under 12 years old and (b) other testing site workers.

Helen Whately: We expect our providers to have rigorous recruitment practices to ensure that the staff they recruit to work on test sites are appropriate for the role. Children must be accompanied by their parent or guardian at a test site. Test site staff are not permitted to test children aged under 12 years old. In all test settings other than a National Health Service setting such as in hospital or a general practitioner surgery, children aged under 12 years old must only be tested by their parent or guardian.

Coronavirus: Contact Tracing

Grahame Morris: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he made an assessment of the potential merits of awarding covid-19 test, track and trace contracts to local authorities before he awarded them to private sector companies.

Helen Whately: We encourage all suppliers of goods and services to express an interest in Test and Trace work whether local authorities, the private sector or an individual. Test and Trace are continuing to increase market engagement as part of specifying and sourcing all goods and services, including engagement with local authorities.

Serco: Contact Tracing

Sir Mark Hendrick: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to England’s Covid contact-tracing system, what criteria his Department used to award Serco a contract in relation to that system.

Helen Whately: Serco are an approved supplier on the Crown Commercial Services (CCS). The CCS undertook a pre-procurement exercise engaging with all suppliers under the Framework to understand which suppliers could establish the contact centre in the volumes required and the timescales needed. The Department has put in place arrangements to ensure robust contract management in line with relevant guidance.

Coronavirus: Death

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of deaths taking place within 28 days of a positive covid test in each of the last six months had an unrelated primary cause of death.

Chris Grayling: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many and what proportion of deaths within 28 days of a positive covid-19 test in each of the last six months resulted from an infection acquired in a (a) hospital or (b) social care setting.

Helen Whately: Public Health England (PHE) COVID-19 death data series counts deaths in people with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 and is not designed to provide definitive information on the causal role of COVID-19 in relation to individual deaths. A PHE analysis from 3 August found that 95% of deaths that occurred within 28 days of the first positive test had a mention of COVID-19 on the death certificate, further information is included in the PHE Technical Summary of 12 August 2020 which is available at the following link:https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/phe-data-series-on-deaths-in-people-with-covid-19-technical-summaryPHE does not hold data for what proportion of deaths within 28 days of a positive COVID-19 test in each of the last six months resulted from an infection acquired in a hospital or social care setting.

Coronavirus: Screening

Dr Dan Poulter: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of Polymerase Chain Reaction tests after 45 cycles.

Helen Whately: In August 2020, a study performed and published by Eurosurveillance looked at a selection of cases to identify samples that were Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) positive for COVID-19 and which had infectious virus. It found the PCR cycle threshold (Ct) values correlate strongly with infectious virus, meaning when there is more infectious virus the Ct value is lower. The probability of culturing virus declines to 8% in samples with Ct?more than?35 and to 6% 10 days after symptom onset. This would be lower for Ct with more than 45 cycles.The Eurosurveillance study is available at the following link:https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.32.2001483?crawler=true

Health Services and Social Services: Coronavirus

Justin Madders: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether household members of health and social care workers will be prioritised for covid-19 testing.

Helen Whately: Essential workers within home care can order five test kits for themselves and other symptomatic members of their households. However, for households of more than five the 119 contact centre raise on order on their behalf.

Coronavirus: North West

Ms Angela Eagle: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many covid-19 tests have been available and what proportion of those tests have been used in (a) the North West, (b) Merseyside, (c) Wirral and (d) Wallasey constituency in each of the last five weeks for which data is available.

Helen Whately: We do not publish data in the format requested. We publish data on the number of pillar 2 tests processed in each local authority weekly alongside the Test and Trace statistics publication on GOV.UK.

Coronavirus: Portsmouth

Stephen Morgan: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timetable is for the closure of the covid-19 testing site at Tipner in Portsmouth.

Helen Whately: The drive through site at Tipner Lorry Park in Portsmouth closed on 23 September 2020.

Mental Health: Care Leavers

Julian Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data is available on mental health outcomes for care leavers.

Julian Knight: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans the NHS has to improve its monitoring of the mental health outcomes of care leavers.

Ms Nadine Dorries: National data on mental health outcomes for care leavers is not currently available. NHS England and NHS Improvement are carrying out exploratory work to include data on care leavers in the Mental Health Outcomes programme. In order to better understand outcomes for children and young people, including care leavers, NHS England is also working with children and young people’s mental health services to drive the use of outcome measures and flow of this data to its national data set.

Arthritis: Medical Treatments

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 3 November 2020 to Question 103607 on Arthritis: Medical Treatments, whether his Department plans to make an assessment of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the treatment of arthritis.

Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 3 November 2020 to Question 103607 on Arthritis: Medical Treatments, for what reason they have not made that assessment.

Edward Argar: While no specific assessment was made, NHS England and NHS Improvement rapidly convened a COVID-19 musculoskeletal (MSK) stakeholder group at the beginning of the pandemic, led by the MSK National Clinical Director, and involving a range of professional, charity and patient groups including the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance (ARMA) and Versus Arthritis. This led to the development of a self-management resource for patients, including those with arthritis, in managing their condition at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.NHS England and NHS Improvement continue to collaborate with ARMA and Versus Arthritis, as well as other key stakeholders, to provide guidance, support and communication to the National Health Service for people with arthritis, both in the current context of the pandemic and in the restoration of services. This collaboration recently led to a rapid assessment of the challenges experienced by patients with arthritis during the pandemic.